Russia is ordering all of its
officials to fly home any relatives living abroad amid heightened tensions over
the prospect of global war, it has been claimed.
Politicians and high-ranking figures
are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home
to the 'Motherland', according to local media.
It comes after Putin cancelled a
planned visit to France amid a furious row over Moscow's role in the Syrian
conflict and just days after it emerged the Kremlin had moved nuclear-capable
missiles near to the Polish border.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev has also warned that the world is at a 'dangerous point' due to
rising tensions between Russia and the US.
According to the Russian site Znak.com,
administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and
employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out
of foreign schools immediately.
Failure to act will see officials
jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.
The Kremlin has also suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.
Just days ago, it was reported that
Russia had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border as tensions
escalated between the world’s largest nation and the West.
The Iskander missiles sent to
Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Nato members Poland
and Lithuania, are now within range of major Western cities including Berlin.
Polish officials – whose capital
Warsaw is potentially threatened – have described the move as of the 'highest
concern'.
Putin's decision to cancel his Paris
visit came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian
forces had committed a 'war crime' in the battered city of Aleppo with the
support of Russian air strikes.
Putin had been due in Paris on
October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church
near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also
took part in talks with him about Syria.
The unprecedented cancellation of a
visit so close to being finalised is a 'serious step... reminiscent of the Cold
War', said Russian foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.
'This is part of the broader
escalation in the tensions between Russia and the West, and Russia and NATO,'
he told AFP.
The Kremlin has also been angered
over the banning of the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics amid
claims of state-sponsored doping of its athletes.
Source:Daily Mail UK
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